1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to pet feeding devices. More specifically, the invention is directed to an automatic wet pet food dispenser which holds one or more sealed containers such as pouches of wet pet food. At selectable times or intervals, the device automatically cuts open each pouch and provides the wet food to the pet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pet ownership has grown dramatically in recent decades. By 2012, 62% of American households included at least one pet (including 90 million cats and 80 million dogs). American pet owners spend over $20 billion annually to feed their pets, and over $4 billion annually to board their pets when they travel.
To care for his or her pet an owner must daily provide fresh drinking water, an adequate quantity of palatable food, and an opportunity for the animal to excrete—a clean litter box for a cat, multiple ‘walks’ each day for a dog. Owners generally integrate these obligations into their daily routines, e.g., feeding the pet each morning before the owner leaves for work or school and cleaning a litter box each evening, but sometimes these tasks are difficult to execute, e.g., when all members of the household are traveling for an afternoon or a weekend.
To address a pet's bodily needs when the owner is traveling, owners employ a diverse variety of strategies. Some owners travel with their pets. Other owners ask neighbors or professional “pet sitters” to care for their pets in the owner's home. Still other owners “board” their pets at animal “day care” facilities. In the case of cats, which do not require walks, each of the animal's bodily needs may be met by a separate automated device—an electric watering fountain, an automated dry food dispenser, and a self-cleaning litter box. Each of these approaches to caring for a pet when the owner is traveling has a number of advantages and disadvantages. Some of these strategies are expensive, some are unreliable, and some may unduly distress a pet already stressed by the owner's absence.
One source of stress, particularly for cats, is that their usual diet may consist of wet cat food, which typically comes in cans or vacuum-sealed pouches. Commercially available automated pet food dispensers invariably dispense dry food.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,059, Grant teaches a cat feeder that has a plurality of spaced feed positions, and a top containing a feeding opening. The feeding opening is indexed sequentially with respect to the successive feed positions. A pair of tension springs are wound and rotate the cover upon release by a time-actuated solenoid. This invention is adequate to dispense dry pet food, and a number of products of similar design are commercially available to pet owners. Such devices can only be used with dry food, as wet food, once exposed to the air, rapidly spoils without refrigeration. A few commercial devices similar to the Grant patent purport to work for wet food, as they add a cavity under each feed position in which a small frozen ice pack may be placed. Such devices, even in principle, cannot preserve wet cat food for more than a few hours. Such ice packs rapidly melt and provide no protection against food spoilage. Even in the short term, when the ice pack is still cold, experience with such feeders shows that cats frequently reject wet food whose underside is colder than room temperature and whose top side is beginning to spoil.
A few devices attempt to meet the need for a safe wet pet food dispenser. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0247829 to Taneja shows an elaborate system comprising a robotic arm and a conventional electric can opener that removes the lid of a cylindrical, hermetically sealed rigid can of wet pet food, transports the can to a location above a nearby food bowl, inverts the can, and finally shakes the can to dispense its contents. This device is too large and complex for reliable home use and risks injuring the pet which may get entangled in the device's moving parts. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,077,360, Figlia shows a wet pet food dispenser that incorporates a conventional can opening mechanism for removing the lid of a cylindrical, hermetically sealed rigid can of wet pet food. This device risks injury to the pet's tongue or mouth by presenting the opened can with sharp edges rather than dispensing the can's contents into a conventional cat food bowl.
Thus, there is a long-felt need to provide a method of and device for dispensing wet pet food in a manner that does not require the pet owner to be present for every feeding, and in a manner that a pet owner is provided with confirmation of preferably both delivery of wet food to the pet and eating of the food by the pet.